
Qass. 
Book. 



, J\/\ ti 



2^ 



^^>KI 




THE 




RELIGION OF LOYALTY: 

DOCTRINAL SEmiON, 



PUEACHKD IN THE 



iiv^t (flJonijvniivtiottal Chuvdt, (!)nl^Urtul, 



Al'SIT. 23(1, 1S6S. 



BY GEORGE MOOAR 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



1^ SAN FRANCISCO: 

PRINTED BY TOWNE AND BACON 

18G5. 





THE 



RELIGION OF LOYALTY: 



DOCTRINAL SERMON, 



PREACHED IN THE 



ixv^t (^mni^vtq^tl^nnl (^UnvtU, ©^feUwa, 



AFJtIZ 23d, 186S. 



BY GEORGE MOOAR 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



SAN FRANCISCO: 

PRINTED BY TOWNE AND BACON* 

1865. 



£745' 



SERMON. 



"For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world 
WILL learn righteousness. — Isaiah xxvi : 9, 1. c. 

Certainly God's judgments have been in our land. 
Certainly the inhabitants of this country have had the 
chance to learn the great principles which lie at the 
root of all righteousness. Often during the four years 
of these judgments, it has seemed to me that a most 
instructive volume might be written with some such 
title as The Religion of Loyalty. It should be the 
purpose of such a volume to gather up the illustrations 
which the Rebellion has supplied, of the truth and force 
of Biblical doctrine. And if it will not seem presump- 
tuous in me, I will undertake to suggest some of the 
themes this book might more fully discuss. 

1. The scenes through which we have been passing 
teach us the importance of correct doctrinal opinions. 

Among the most common remarks which you will 
hear concerning religious matters is this : '' It is no 
matter what you believe. Your creed njakes no differ- 
ence with your life or your prospect of salvation." 
But the difference between such men as Webster and 
Calhoun was a difference of opinion, of belief almost 
solely. One was not any purer or safer man personally 
than the other. Indeed some might think that if either 
had the advantage in this respect, the Southern states- 
man had it. And what was the difference between 



Jefferson Davis and Stephen A. Douglas ? Both were 
ambitious ; both were lovers of power and fitted to be 
leaders of the people. Doubtless there were great dif- 
ferences in natural disposition. But the point at which 
tlie two men separated was quite as much one of belief 
as of sympathy. They differed in their political creed. 
The one exalted the sovereignty of the State, and the 
other the sovereignty of the Nation. Did this differ- 
ence between those men lead to no serious conse- 
quences? Why, the Rebellion, with all its enormity, 
has grown in great part out of that disagreement in 
respect to the theory of our Government. For thirty 
years the one creed had been industriously preached on 
platform and in pulpit in one section, and the other 
creed in the other section. This political opinion of 
State Rights poisoned the whole Southern mind and 
heart. We said : " Oh, it is only a difference of opin- 
ion." But it was an entering wedge, which well nigh 
split a nation asunder. 

We may laugh at opinions, and make merriment of 
creeds and catechisms. But, " as a man thinketJi in his 
heart, so is he." No personal sincerity or correctness 
of general behavior can prevent the injurious influence 
of his opinions, if those opinions are wrong. If these 
opinions do not seem to affect him, they will affect his 
children. If they do not cause ruin in the first genera- 
tion, they will in the second. 

Doubtless thousands of men who have drawn the 
sword against this Government have been as sincere 
and conscientious as any thousand of our own soldiers. 
They have felt it sweet to die for country as well as we. 
They have shown their sincerity by sacrifices great as 
any that we have made. The very spies and assassins 
have professed to be doing their country service. But 



we condemn tliem. History will condemn them to dis- 
grace. At their doors will be laid the accusation of a 
great crime. And why ? Because they were mistaken 
in opinion ! Because they had adopted an incorrect 
theory of our institutions ! Is it then of no importance 
what men believe ? Does sincerity whiten the assassin's 
bloody hand ? Does it prevent the flowing of a nation's 
blood and treasure ? Rather we know that this fimati- 
cal sincerit}^ has prolonged and aggravated the war. 

Differences there may be in religion ; differences as 
to mere dress, which will have little effect ; because 
they do not pertain to the substance of the faith. But 
all differences of creed, which do run down into the 
substance of faith, however slight they may seem, are 
of the greatest moment, of gravest concern. 

2. Among the most prominent lessons in doctrine, 
w^hich these times of rebellion have taught us, is, that 
government is a great good. 

The Bible has often told us indeed, that the ruler of 
a land is minister unto it for good. But liberty was the 
American idol. The people were irksome of restraint. 
We liked to do that which was good in our own eyes. 
We did not appreciate the value of civil authority. 
But we have been taught to think of government as a 
great comfort, a shelter, and a defense. It seems now 
like the rocky coast, with green grass and clumps of 
flowers in its clefts, which keeps back the angry waves. 
We have seen its strong arm uplifted, and we have 
rejoiced in that arm, as a little child in a moment of 
danger rejoices in the strength of his father. 

Government is no longer, in our eyes, a convenient 
arrangement, a shrewd political contrivance ; nor is it a 
kind of copartnership, into which men enter for a httle 
while, which is to be dissolved as soon as a personal 



whim or interest may dictate. It is an ordinance of 
God, a venerable and blessed institution, with which it 
is a sacrilege to trifle, indispensable to personal comfort, 
to growth of country, to peace, to progress, to the secur- 
ity of all that men hold dearest on earth. Our fathers, 
brothers, sons, have laid down their lives by thousands 
— for what ? To maintain the Government of the 
Union. They counted not their lives dear ; we have 
not counted our taxes dear ; nothing has been counted 
too dear to be given up to keep the Government un- 
harmed. Then, surely, government — just, equal, and 
strong — is a great good. 

But if human government be a great good, then 
God's government is good and blessed also. There are 
persons who profess to like to hear concerning the love 
of God, the fatherhood and motherhood of God, as they 
fancifull}^ speak, but of his law and government they 
cannot bear to think. But the Government of God is 
the stability and security of the Universe. " The Lord 
reif/neth,^^ therefore "let the earth rejoice." He might 
live, but if He did not reign, the world would be an 
anarchy. 

Because, after the assassins had done their work, and 
had left the noble President dead, the Government, 
nevertheless, in all its departments, remained ; its au- 
thority could reach every part of the loyal land, and 
every soldier in the national army ; therefore we were 
able to pursue our business, and to look forward to the 
future with hope. Even the national currency drooped, 
if at all, but for a moment. No panic ran like a wild 
fire through the States. The Government, that invisi- 
ble, but strong and blessed thing, was still in Washing- 
ton, and omnipresent also in America. Even the rebel, 
camps felt its power. Its flags, floating though they 



were at half-mast, were glad emblems still of national 
majesty. 

The moral Government of God is, in like measure, a 
joy and pride. Because it is strong, the world is secure. 
Infinite goodness, unswerving justice — God himself 
reigns. Crime often rears its head ; sin plots in the 
dark places of the heart ; rebellion so wide and so defi- 
ant, seems ready to break all cords asunder. He that 
sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. For he hath set his 
king in Zion. He " hath prepared His throne in the 
heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all." 

3. The events of the past four years have taught us 
the reality of the divine providence mid purposes. 

It has been gratifying to notice how men have loved, 
in the shadow of these passing events, to detect the 
hand of God in our affairs. This has been true not of 
professedly religious men only, but of men who make 
no pretensions to personal piety. Their language has 
been surprisingly religious in its tone. When prosper- 
ity has come, they have felt like thanking God ; when 
there have been reverses, they have even more notice- 
ably said : It is God's hand ; He has some great and 
good lessons for us to learn. What they have said, has 
been strangely true. The humiliating things have been 
put into our national experience just at the place and 
time in which they were wanted. If the war could 
have come to an end in one year, what a curse to us ! 
if in two years, what would the land have gained ! If 
certain men had been permitted to win the victories for 
us, how would they have fastened on us the old bond- 
age! And even now, it is a feeling universal, sponta- 
neous, that this last and most sad event is from the 
hand of the same watchful and kind providence. If 
you have read speeches and sermons, and talked with 



men on tlie street, they all tell you God is in this mat- 
ter. And would it not be a curse to think that all 
these things were happening, just as men throw dice, 
that there was no Hand of a personal God on the secret 
springs, ordering events, and bringing good out of evil? 
Hardly less disagreeable would be the supposition that 
all has come from the mere destiny of things — fate. 
We want to feel, and these years of war have taught 
us to feel, that it is the will of "Creation's Lord and 
friend " which is being fulfilled in these times. 
■ Well, if the doctrine of Divine Providence has been 
thus commended to us in national affairs, let it be com- 
mended to us in all affairs. The same hand which leads 
our nation, leads all nations and all individuals, and all 
things work together for good to those who love him. 
How does this doctrine of Providence come with its 
comfort in many a home to-day, in which strange and 
dark things have happened ! Tliese strange and dark 
things, things not to be explained by any human wit, 
do not break the heart, because that heart takes to itself 
the great Christian doctrine that God does all things 
well : nothing is out of his inspection and sway. Little 
things as well as great, terrible things as well as beau- 
tiful, are embraced in his providence and obey his be- 
hests. Oh, well for us, if we can feel that we love Him 
and are adopted into the family of Him who watches 
the sparrow as it falls, numbers the hairs of the head, 
as well as rules in the movements of mighty armies ! 

But it deserves marked notice how in these times of 
war, loyal men have rejoiced in the doctrine of Divine 
Purposes. Not merely has it been a comfort to us to 
feel that God's hand was in charge of all our affairs, but 
we have been confident that our national future was sure 
by his eternal purpose. We were "elected" to be United 



9 

States. The great heart of the people has been buoyed 
up by the very general belief that God had "foreoi'- 
damed" that we should be one, and free. To use a 
current phrase, we have believed in a "manifest des- 
tiny " for our Republic. Physical geographers have 
shown us that this destiny was written for us in the line 
of our coasts, in the course of our rivers, in the moun- 
tain chains, which traverse our territory. We were 
never meant to be divided. Philosophers in history 
have traced out the same divine purpose in the coun- 
try's annals. Where no such reasonings have been em- 
ployed, yet somehow men have said over to themselves : 
We were not made to fall. No disaster, bad as that of 
Bull Run, or horrid as this at Ford's theater, could 
repress the national conviction that God had marked us 
out for deliverance. So certain have we been of this, 
that immediately on the news of such an event, we 
have set ourselves to studying how it was likely to sub- 
serve the plan of God concerning us. 

The war could not have been waged except for this 
firm persuasion that it was purposed to end in victory. 
This has nerved the arm of the soldier ; this has cheered 
him in toilsome marches ; this has reconciled us all to 
"fighting it out on this line," because we have held a 
firm faith that this line was the one marked out from 
the foundation of the world. It is this conviction of a 
Divine piu'pose in our war which breathes in the sec- 
ond Inaugural of President Lincoln, and gave that doc- 
ument its place in the American heart. ' ' The Almighty 
has his own purpose." That was the opening sentence 
of a paragraph, which read like words of inspiration, 
and which compelled the awe of men on both sides of 
the Atlantic. 

Again and again men have spontaneously quoted 

B 



10 

against our enemies the proverb : " Whom the gods 
destroy they first make mad." Steadily the faith grew 
that God meant they should fail, signally and terribly 
fail. 

If we have found no objection to holding this faith in 
God's purposes with respect to the war, why should we 
find any to holding it with respect to all events ? If 
it has cheered and spurred men to valorous deeds, why 
should it not spur the sinner to work out his own sal- 
vation with fear and trembling? If such a faith be 
nowise inconsistent with the firmest possible conviction 
of personal resjDonsibility and obligation in national 
affairs, how should it be inconsistent with such respon- 
sibility and obligation any where or at any time ? If 
the American mind believ-es in destiny and a divine pur- 
pose in the domain of politics, why should it not in the 
domain of religion? If Paul, and Augustine, and Cal- 
vin, and Edwards utter our belief respecting our na- 
tional redemption, why not respecting our personal 
salvation ? 

4. The rebellion has made men learn the truth of the 
Scriptural doctrine of total depravity. 

We have long since learned to say that such and such 
a man is disloyal, totally disloyal. We well understood 
what was meant by the phrase. The man might be a 
good father, and an honest man in many relations — nay, 
he might be a praying man ; but he was totally disloyal 
to his country. There was not one sentiment of true 
affection for his Government ; his sympathies were all 
against it. That gave him his character ; that divided 
him from his fellow-citizens ; it made a deep and black 
line between him and them. Taking this position, he 
became more and more like those with whom he asso- 
ciated. Some of them will be more mad and desperate 



11 

than he ; they will not observe the proprieties so much ; 
they will do fouler deeds than he. But then we know 
that these gentlemanly, and chivalrous, and high-bred 
rebels are just as totally disloyal as Wilkes Booth or 
any of his accomplices. They differ among themselves, 
and some of them are much more enjoyable than others ; 
but they all are one in disaffection and alienation from 
their country. They are committed to one unholy 
cause. 

But is not this precisely what is meant by^the theo- 
logical phrase of total depravity? It means, simply, 
total disloyalty. A man either is or is not loyal to his 
God — he either does or he does not choose to have God 
reign over him ; if he does not choose, we say he is un- 
godly, and totally ungodly. We do not say, he is totally 
unamiable, or totally dishonest, or totally untruthful. 
He is not as bad as he could or may become ; but godli- 
ness — a disposition to serve the Governor of the world — 
he does not possess — he does not possess it at all ; and 
not to possess that, is indeed to be totally wrong. The 
main, central pillar of a holy character has fallen, and 
the house is a ruin. 

With the first moment of secession, the sunny South 
became a foreign land. It still was sunny, and there 
were memorials of the old Union ; but the atmosphere 
was oppressively vacant to the American heart. So with 
man's soul ; it^till gives traces of its Maker and Lord, 
but the supreme loyalty to God is strangely, unnatu- 
rally, and yet wholly absent. 

6. We can not help, also, learning in these times the 
ierrihkness of sin. One great part of Biblical religion 
consists in setting forth the evil and bitter thing it is to 
sin against God. On a small scale, and in a single person, 
sius of all kinds seem to lose their enormity ; but dur- 



12 

ing three years we have seen them on a large scale, and 
as they affect millions of people. If we suppose that the 
rebellion spnmg from ambition and from the disposition 
to perpetuate human bondage, who can compute the 
ruin those sins have brought in their train ? If, as is 
doubtless true, all that has happened can be traced in 
great measure to a few leading individuals — to their 
personal lust for power — how many murdered lives 
throw back upon those few a criminality such as must 
appall and overwhelm them with accusations ? Sin ap- 
pears in its full light to us only in its consequences. 

It would have been a small thing for Kennedy to have 
started a fire here and there in the City of New York, 
if each building fired stood alone ; but it was in his 
heart to lay the great city of a million of people in ashes. 
Arson, with such purposes, becomes a colossal crime. 
We mention the crime of treason in a single breath ; 
but that crime, as it lay in the purpose, and went out 
into the deed of the rebel conspirators, meant the mur- 
der of at least a million American men, and the sorrow 
and anguish, and poverty, to a greater or less extent, 
of ten millions more. It meant wasted cities, devas- 
tated towns, ruined industry. All this enormity of evil 
sprang out of a sinful heart. You may put that sinful- 
ness into what hearts you please, and into as many as 
you please ; but you cannot rise from this enormous 
spectacle of suffering without feeling tjpit in a world 
such as this is, it is dangerous to trifle w^ith sin — just 
as it is dangerous in a powder mill to strike as much as 
a spark of fire. That single spark may instantaneously 
destroy the labor and hopes of a life time. 

It has often been to me a serious and solemn thought, 
as the months have more and more revealed the immen- 
sity of crime, to reflect that the authors of all this are 



13 

just such men as ourselves. We are ajot to figure great 
criminals to be persons of peculiarly revolting history 
and personal appearance ; but they are not always such. 
They have the same flesh and blood as ourselves ; they 
have no worse natures than loyal men. Exactly such 
sins as we indulge have led them into the crime which 
now appalls us. At first thought we assume that at least 
Wilkes Booth and his accomplices are the worst per- 
sons, and the worst looking, that walk the earth. It 
will not be found so, very likely. Some leading men 
of the South may disavow them — may profess great 
horror of them, possibly ; but if you were to converse 
with these assassins, it is not improbable they might 
even win your sympathies. It would be found that 
they were influenced by no worse feelings or motives 
than the men who profess to abhor them ; nay, it might 
be found that they were ruled by the same sinful mo- 
tives which actuate ourselves. Covetousness, or love of 
notoriety, or personal resentment may have prompted 
the deed. These motives look bad when we see them 
seeking the lives of men so eminent and so kindly as 
Abraham Lincoln and William H. Seward ; but Oh ! 
how many times have we given way to precisely these 
motives in our own life ? In how many millions of our 
countrymen are the same sins working to will and to 
do ? So we come out on that exposition of the matter 
which our Lord gives : " He that hateth his brother is 
a murderer." He who does not love Grod with his 
whole heart, and his neighbor as himself, he is an assas- 
sin ; that is to say, there is no knowing what a sinner 
may do — may be left to do. The most revolting crimes 
spring from nothing worse than sin. If covetousness 
was Judas' motive in betraying his Master, then that 
Master has been virtually betrayed many and many 



• 



14 

a time. If covetousness, ambition, pride, and love of 
power were the moral causes of the rebellion, then, 
wherever these sins prevail, there is the motive power 
which may deluge the continent in blood. 

6. We have learned also, amid these judgments, that 
retrihdion is hoth a necessity and a great good. Our 
humanitarian religions, and the peaceful times have 
caused many people to have a great horror of punish- 
ment. They do not like to hear about it. They quar- 
rel with any prospect of future penalty ; but what were 
our national security if no retribution had been prac- 
ticed, or were yet to be administered to high-handed 
offenders ? Who of us does not rejoice that detectives, 
sharp and keen in scent, were on all the routes that 
led out of Washington, and that they scoured the coun- 
try for the arrest of all who had part or complicity in 
the great crime of assassination ? Is there a loyal man, 
or woman, or child, who does not pray that the highest 
penalty which an offender can pay, may be paid when 
those men shall be arrested ? Has there not been a 
sense of justice gratified as we have seen the hot-beds 
of secession trampled into the dust beneath the iron 
feet of war ? When we have looked on the skeletons 
of our brave fellows returning from the slow death of 
Southern prisons, have not our souls clamored for ven- 
geance on their infamous keepers ? Have we not felt 
glad, soberly and righteously, and yet almost exult- 
tantly glad, as we have seen the fomenters of all this 
mischief reaping the whirlwind which they themselves 
had sown, falling into the pit which they had them- 
selves digged ? And if some of them shall hang on the 
gallows it will be considered by millions a matter of 
praise. 

Now, if we have learned thus to see the necessity, 



15 

the justice, the benevolence, and even the joy, of retri- 
bution in national affairs, we must admit that it is pos- 
sible to acquiesce in the retributions which are decreed 
in the Divine government against those who shall not 
comply with the proclaimed amnesty of the Governor 
and Saviour of the world ? I have heard one of you 
say, you could stand by and see a certain man, once 
your friend, hung, because of his prominent agency in 
this rebellion. Doubtless there are friends and kindred 
who, if they could not, in the temper of the elder Bru- 
tus, stand by and see such a penalty inflicted upon those 
of their own flesh, would, nevertheless, admit that it 
were a just and fitting award. Do we not learn in the 
light of such feelings, in reference to national crime, the 
necessary place, and reason, and good, of those penalties 
which God inflicts upon all sinners who stand out against 
his supreme and blessed authority? The great loyal 
heart of the people believes the sentimentality, which 
would not punish with death the assassin and the perfid- 
ious traitor, to be sickly and dangerous. From all the 
four winds the popular breath is, "there must be ret- 
ribution. Treason must be made odious." The nation 
must express by condign penalty its estimation of its 
own life. So God says of those who persist in rebellion 
against him. They have lifted up unholy hands against 
a blessed and perfect government ; they have had no 
excuse for it ; they have struck in the face of Love and 
Favor — verily they shall have their reward. 

7. These yeafs of war have taught us the folly and 
emptiness of mere secret religion. We have not been 
content with guessing at the loyalty of our fellow-citi- 
zens. In times like these the demand has been — show 
your colors ; declare where you stand ; take the oath ; 
join some league ; contribute to some loyal object ; 



16 

show ill some way, in a way which puts the matter be- 
yond doubt, which side you are on. We have come to 
feel that what a man thinks and speaks about his coun- 
try is not a private, it is a public concern. Do I ask 
my neighbor in regard to his feelings and views on the 
great question, he is not at liberty to tell me that it is 
an impertinent inquiry ; it is eminently pertinent — for 
when such a question is at issue no man can decently 
pretend to be neutral. This lesson is one which Christ 
would have men learn in religion likewise. It is not a 
merely private affair whether I am Christian or not in 
my decisions and sympathies. If I love some private 
person, it is at my option, to a great extent, to keep the 
matter to myself But our Lord is no private person ; 
if a man loves Him it is public concern that he express 
his love, and let it be known widely as his influence 
may extend. Therefore it is that so much stress is laid, 
in the New Testament, on profession. Christ wants out 
and out, decided, open followers. In a cause so vitally 
important as his, our religion must be, not indeed osten- 
tatious, but pronounced and clear ; if it is not paraded 
in posters along the streets, it should be written in liv- 
ing epistles, known and read of all men. 

8. The course of political events during this time of 
our nation's danger has illustrated the doctrine, that all 
genuine religion will he loyal to Christ. We have heard, 
even to sickness, men profess that they were loyal to 
the Government, but not to the existing administration. 
That sounds plausible ; but we came fb count all such 
professions suspicious. Let our conviction concerning 
this point be well pondered. Some of our fellow-citi- 
zens, who would not like to be called irreligious or un- 
godly, make a distinction between God's government 
and the administration of affairs in the name of our 



17 

Lord Jesiis Christ — they are loyal to God, but not 
to his vice-royal Sou. It is the claim of the New Tes- 
tauient, that all such loyally is radically defective, God 
has set his King upon the holy Hill of Zion, and that 
King is Christ. ' * All authority is given unto me in 
heaven and in earth ; " and to be disloyal to Him, is to 
be thoroughly ungodly — "He that hateth me hateth 
my Father also." We have learned to have a whole- 
some suspicion of the party which praised the Govern- 
ment and picked flaws in what they called "Lincoln's 
Government," Let us beware of that naturalistic relig- 
ion, current in much of our literature, which exalts 
God and disowns Christ. We do not like this decep- 
tion in politics, we should dislike it as much in religion. 
We have come to look upon it as a mere ruse to dis- 
guise real opposition there ; is it anything else h^re ? 
Does a man say, " Well, rehgion is a good thing ; I love 
religion ; but I do not like this and that policy which 
Christ pursues and insists upon, I see the importance 
of repentance and good works, but not of faith," We 
should have learned that this attitude towards Christ 
is exactly what has gained in politics the opprobrious 
name of " Copperhead." It is a want of cordial and un- 
hesitating loyalty. To oppose the Government and to 
oppose the administration, in this case, is one and the 
same thing — for the Government is "upon His shoul- 
der, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsel- 
lor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince 
of Peace." 

9. These events of war impress upon the public 
mind that leading evangelical truth, the necessity of 
Regeneration. A disloyal man does not become loyal 
without a thorough change of heart. Doubtless hund- 
reds and thousands may take the oath of allegiance 
c 



18 

under the immediate motive of personal interest, but 
we feel that we could not really trust one of them, 
unless his change came out ©f a truly penitent confes- 
sion of his wrong. One might become innocuous, might 
say nothing, and do nothing to the, 'prejudice of the Gov- 
ernment ; but nothing save a thorough conversion in 
convictions, and feelings, and sympathies, can make a 
real rebel into a real patriot. Whether such conver- 
sions will be many or few, does not appear. From all 
that appears, it does not seem that they are very nu- 
merous yet ; but unless such changes do take place, 
nothing less than immigration of Union men and en- 
franchisement of the freedmen can make those broad 
States one in the national bonds. But it is obviously 
on the same grounds, only of course those grounds are 
deeper, that Christ says: "Except ye become con- 
verted, ye cannot enter the kingdom ot heaven ;" ' ' Yer- 
ily, verily, I say unto you, ye must be born again." 
Heaven cannot be heaven, if ungodly and godly are 
mixed in its inclosures. There is no doctrine, which 
comes to us with so obvious a force as this of conver- 
sion. I have preached it here sometimes, and heard 
that men went away sayitig it was a hard doctrine. 
Surely it is the easiest of doctrines to believe. The 
necessity of a change of affections toward Grod in order 
to heavenly peace, is as clear as the sunlight. 

10. Once more, the distinctively Christian. (Zoc^rwze of 
costly sacrifice for the redemption of men, has been com- 
mended to us in the midst of these judgments. From 
beginning to end, our national redemption has been 
advanced only at the price of blood. In thousands and 
thousands of cases this blood has been of the purest 
and most virtuous. We used to read occasionally an 
English memoir of some noble youth who perished in 



19 

the Crimea or among the Sepoys. It seemed odd to 
us to associate sacrifices so pure, offerings so blame- 
less, with the altars of war. We held such lives to be 
rare in the ranks of soldiers ; but they have not been 
rare in this struggle. The beauty of our Israel has 
been slain again and again on the high places, and amid 
the low and malarious swamps of our battle fields and 
trenches. What murderous assaults ! It makes the 
blood curdle to see the poor fellows slaughtered in those 
awful fires — in the Seven Days, at Fredericksburg, at 
Fort Wagner, at Yicksburg, at Fort Hudson, in the 
battle-month of May, and at Petersburg. The tales told 
of Andersonville surpass not our belief, indeed, but 
our conception — " we have been bought with a price ! " 
But we little thought that when the price had nearly 
all been paid — in what has been softly called regular 
warfare — we little thought that they would wreak from 
us that charmed and precious life, which seemed to rep- 
resent precisely what was best and most characteristic 
in our average American manhood. Many a Barabbas, 
many a shoddy contractor and army robber we might 
have released unto them ; but we could not easily find 
another offering to their rage so hard, so cruel to give 
up, as Abraham Lincoln. The first shock stunned us, 
for it was sudden ; but the more you look upon it, the 
more does the deed seem atrocious — the costlier does 
the victim appear. He was an American in every in- 
stinct. He was, in every fibre, of national lineage. 
All his education was of the most unmixed home man- 
ufacture. His dominant associations were with the 
yeomanry of his own land. He represented the hund- 
reds, we might say the hundred thousands of Amer- 
ican youth, who have struggled up from poverty and 
have acquired knowledge under difficulties. ' He had 



20 

cultivated familiar acquaintance with his fellow-citi- 
zens, and was eminently a man among men. He 
spoke to their understanding, and their good sense and 
best feelings. He was hedged about by no scholastic 
or professional ways. He had that homely, unaffected 
kindness, which knew not how to stilt its phrases, but 
spoke its sympathy with laconic simplicity to many 
a stricken widow, and many a wounded soldier. ' ' Hon- 
est" was what the people called him, and honesty 
is the highest compliment that the common men of 
America can pay. His one fault in public affairs was 
said to be leniency, but it was leniency which sprung 
from no defective reprobation of crime, but from the 
native kindliness and toleration of his nature. A finer 
sense of justice never dwelt in a statesman's mind ; a 
truer exponent of the American institutions never sat 
in the Presidential chair. You would not expect from 
a man of his broad humor and his somewhat rough com- 
panionship, temperance ; bat he was well nigh, I be- 
lieve wholly, abstinent. You would fear that the sense 
of religion would be weak, but even a passing traveler, 
as Goldwin Smith, noticed it as a controlling element 
in his nature ; and no one could read his letters and 
messages without feeling that that element seemed to 
flow from fuller and fuller fountains, as if the rock in 
which the fountains were had been cleft far down into 
its heart by the providence and grace of God ! This 
man, just then in the hight of his esteem — when radical 
impatience had changed to praise, and the conservative 
fear had turned to love — ^just as the sounds of victory 
long wished for had come to his ear — just after his own 
safe return from Richmond, the surrendered capital — 
just at the hour when he was studying how his four 
years' kindness to come might complete what four years 



21 

of war had now fairly begun — this man, the typical 
wild flower of our civilization, was deemed the last and 
crowning sacrifice of our national redemption. No won- 
der strong men wept. And no wonder if now that 
he is offered, men think that offering is done, and the 
war is over ; for surely our foes cannot take anything, 
and we have nothing to give, which is worthier. 

How impressively this event suggests to us the great 
G-ospel Sacrifice, I need only mention. It suggests it 
only, I know ; but though a vastly lesser instance of 
sacrifice than the death of the Son of Grod, yet it is an 
instance in the same general line — a filling up, we may 
reverently say, of what was behind in the sufferings 
of Christ for the amelioration of men — making us, too, 
more and more to feel that, awful in some of its aspects 
as the Scripture Doctrine of Atonement is, it is not all 
foreign to our human history. Rather it runs through 
the web of human affairs, everywhere present with its 
threads of blood. Wilkes Booth, like Caiaphas of old, 
uttered prophecy to which he himself was judicially 
blind — '• it is expedient for us that one man die for the 
people, that the whole nation perish not." Without 
some such costly shedding of blood, there seems to be 
no remission of sins for nations or for individuals ; and 
however costly all our offerings for country and for hu- 
man deliverance may be, the Christian Doctrine ever 
glorifies itself in the face of our bleeding sympathies — 
because it teaches that God has laid the costliest sacri- 
fice that can be laid upon any human altar. He " spared 
not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." So 
it happens that whatever be the glories of sacrifice, 
which thrill us in these sublime moments of a nation's 
crisis, the old tale of our suffering Lord, which we heard 
in childhood at our mother's knee, loses none of its 



22 

interest in the comparison ; rather it is just at these 
times that we are fitted to appreciate its worth, 

I might show also again how the glow of loyalty with 
which these events of war have transfigured us is fitted 
to impart itself to our religion, making our citizenship 
and service in the heavenly kingdom take on a similar 
ardor, devotion, generosity, joy, and triumph. Indeed, " 
I count it one among the greatest gifts of the war that 
this word loyalty has got fairly at home in our Amer- 
ican speech. We have now only to say to each other, 
be as loyal, as delicately, chivalrously loyal to Christ as 
you are to country. Transfer to Jesus, your King, 
those very sentiments and emotions which have thrilled 
you in these eventful years of national danger, and 
struggle, and triumph. 

It were possible to illustrate likewise how eminently 
the Bible shows itself the book for war as for peace. 
Read at the camp-fires, the hot blaze has brought out 
truths which could not be seen by the parlor lamp or 
in the gentle light of peaceful days at home. How 
have men read its hard passages as well as its loving 
ones, and felt that they also were fitted to this wicked 
world. Men who have caviled at the extermination of 
the Canaanite, have come to see in some measure why 
it needed to be. The very liberals in religion, who 
have been shocked at the imprecations contained in the 
Psalms, have been obliged to repeat the same language 
in order to express their own righteous indignation. 
Our own Starr King, who was so much inclined to tone 
down the Biblical threatenings by calling them express 
sions of oriental passionateness, found it easy and nat- 
ural to use those very expressions of wrath against the 
enemies of his country. For them, at least, he felt that 
no punishment could be too severe. And surely no 



23 

religion but the Biblical has had any pertinence or power 
in the scenes of bloodshed and arms. On the fields of 
blood and in the prisons of captivity, the Bible has 
shown itself the book of solid and precious comfort to 
the dying and suffering. 

But it has been my aim not so much to gather the 
illustrations of what the war has given the people to 
learn of righteousness, as to throw out hints of how illus- 
trations might be gathered. Sure I am that in the ways 
pointed out, and in other ways, we have been learning 
righteousness — we have been lifted up toward God — we 
have come to welcome and rejoice in his government, 
to feel satisfied in the terror of his retributions. His 
Providence has seemed to draw close about our lives 
and our homes. The Biblical view of man's sinfulness, 
its deep seat and its power, have been made more 
evident. The one safety of the world as of the nation, 
has been seen to be in having a new heart, a right loyal 
spirit toward Christ our King. As country has grown 
richer and its future more secure, because of the blood 
that has been poured out in its defense, we have been 
led to think that that heavenly country must be rich 
and secure, for it has been purchased at the same kind 
and a greater degree of cost. Oh ! that the Spirit of 
God, coming into every city, and town, and village in 
these States, would take of these things which Divine ' 
judgments have taught us, and double at once the right- 
eous men in the land ! God grant that we who profess 
to be righteous, may find that our righteousness is 
becoming purer and more perfect in quality. Then 
violence shall no more be heard in the land, wasting 
nor desolation within our borders. Our people, being 
all righteous, shall inherit the land forever. He who 
has been judgiug us shall give unto them that mourn, 



24 

beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the gar- 
ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ; that they 
may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of 
the Lord, that He may be glorified. Then shall they 
build the wastes, raise up the former desolations, repair 
the waste cities and the desolations of former years, 
which seem like the desolations of many generations. 



6 S'I2 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



012 045 236 8 



